THE DWARF

Look at him now, the son,

And the churchyard twist in his foot,

Standing there by his mother's door,

As if he had taken root!

She crossed a grave, they say,

On a black day in spring,

And bore him in the seventh month —

A poor, misshapen thing.

Kneeling down in the dark

She travailed without a cry,

And gave him the mothering kiss

Between the earth and the sky.

He licks cuckoo-spittle, they say,

And eats the dung of the roads,

Mocking the journeymen

As they pass by with their loads.

Look at his little face —

As grey as wool is grey —

And the cast in his green eye,

So wild and far away.

Does he see Magh-meala?

Is his breath human breath?

Are his thoughts of the hidden things

Untouched by time and death?

Hanging there by the half-door,

Dangling his devil's foot,

Stock-still on the threshold,

As if he had taken root!